The Veggie Garden Chronicles: Cherry Tomatoes

As some of you might know, I have been growing a veggie garden on my rooftop in Shanghai. Since I can only grow in pots, I have been sticking to plants that do well in containers and have been surprised at how well these little guys can do with very little space and a minimum of attention!

These little cherry tomatoes were a lot sweeter than any store-bought ones!

My cherry tomato plant is doing really well and I was surprised to find a lot of the little tomatoes were already ripe this weekend. There are also loads more on the plant that are still too green for picking.

So cute and sweet, straight from the garden to the bowl! I found that a few of the tomatoes got pecked on by birds and it actually made me really happy that the little fellows might be finding some reprieve from this gray urban landscape on my rooftop!

Gourmet Salad with Mango

This is my first salad creation of the summer, and a follow-up on my post about the 5 rules for making a full meal of your salad!

My salad consists of some lettuce from my very own roof-top veggie garden, and the usual culprits: ripe tomatoes and carrots. But the extra protein and fruit I added are what really made it special!


Color:
The bright summer colors did a lot to make this salad visually appealing and beautiful!


Protein:
I added a mix of walnuts and almonds as my protein #1, and cubes of feta cheese as protein #2.

Fruit:
I added juicy, ripe mango as my fruit -- it added an unexpected sweetness to this savory salad and balanced out the salty feta cheese really well!

Texture:
Crispy fresh lettuce, juicy soft mango, the crunch of the nuts and the dry crumbliness of the feta made for a great variety of textures that kept this salad interesting and exciting!

Homemade Dressing:
I made a simple oil and vinegar dressing for this salad, but the key was using balsamic vinegar. This type of vinegar has a natural sweetness that went really well with the mango flavors and really enriched the salad!

This colorful salad had enough variety to make for a full meal, and the protein kept me sated even though it was all relatively light.

Let me know if you have experimented with any delicious salad combos of your own! Post comments and recipe suggestions in below and I will be sure to follow up. Happy eating!

Lettuce Celebrate the Harvest!

I started a veggie garden in my roof this spring having no clue what I was doing. I just ordered some seeds on Taobao, bought some pots and soil and planted in a pretty haphazard way.

I've always been a but of a green thumb and growing things I can eat is something I have always enjoyed, but I never really tried growing things beyond my kitchen herbs. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was, and how rewarding!

I felt bad initially about digging up my lettuce plants, but have been able to eat salad from my rooftop now and again by simply snipping a few leaves when the need arises. This past Friday I finally dug up my lettuce plants and some baby spinach for the most locally sourced meal I've ever had!

Mostly the weather is getting too warm for the lettuce to stay happy, so it was time to say goodbye. Making room for my summer crops like basil, tomatoes, peppers and cucumber.

Happy eating local!

Harvest Time for Mint & Basil!

Today was a day to harvest some mint and basil! My plants have been growing quickly in the summer sunshine, and they need to be trimmed often to stop them from getting too leggy and scraggly.

My outta control little basil plant!

Mint should be trimmed from the top and the cut should be made right above the node containing some new leaves. This can encourage the node to sprout new branches rather than growing straight up, so your plant will become bushier rather than really tall. This means more leaves!

Basil should also be trimmed often. It's important to stop the plant from flowering, since this makes it stop producing leaves and changes the flavor of the leaves that are left over. Unless you want the plant to flower so you can harvest seeds, you should trim the basil often to prevent buds from forming at all.

To trim basil, look for a node where several tiny leaves are starting to grow all close together and trim just above that. This usually causes the branch to split into two new branches, making for bushier plants, and also stimulates new leaf growth. Doing this often is also supposed to stop the stems from becoming woody!

Mint and Basil, likely to turn into something yummy sometime this week, so stay posted!